Hair and My Early Adulthood Revisited

The ups and downs are worth another look. I was eighteen about to graduate from high school with my barber, seated at his chair. In jest I declared, ” Cut it all off.” He didn’t confirm my request. He just started cutting and cutting and cutting.

A few days later as the picture of my entire class was taken at graduation I could quickly be found amongst the 600 or so fully coifed graduates.

It took the entire summer for me to meet my freshman college class as a non-skinhead. As you might gather shaved heads in 1963 were far from the norm.

Speaking of the norm. Straight hair had been in vogue for decades in the early 60s. There was actually a frat brother who made pretty good money straightening hair in our Jewish fraternity.

Then after I graduated and in the late 60s Ryan O’Neal in Love Story and Paul Newman in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid made wavy hair popular. It saved me the price of a comb for the last 50 years. Thanks Butch.

A Hairy Story

I have this white and rarely black head of hair. At three-week intervals for almost 45 years, my spouse has cut my hair. Kristine has done that in our backyard in Southern California for 27 years.

Kris discovered the local birds were adding the hair to their nests. My hair declared upon that discovery, “I like the nests better.” Despite that, my hair has not bailed out on me yet.

So much for the hairy stories.